Technology

HSBC’s online and mobile banking services have been restored after customers faced major disruption on Black Friday. The bank said the issues began just after 8am on the busy shopping day due to an issue with its “internal systems”. Services were back and up and running on Saturday morning, having started to return late on

A rare and extremely high-energy particle has been detected falling to Earth by astronomers. Named after the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu, it is one of the highest-energy cosmic rays ever detected, according to scientists. The Amaterasu particle has an energy exceeding 240 exa-electron volts (EeV) and comes only second in recorded history to the Oh-My-God

China has seen an uptick in respiratory illness and clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked China for more detailed information about the increase in respiratory disease. Look back to 5 January, 2020, and you’ll find a statement from the WHO titled “Pneumonia of unknown cause – China”. It is

Aftershocks can occur “decades to centuries” on from an original earthquake, a new study has suggested. Researchers looked at the timing and clustering of earthquakes that followed a group of historical ones in North America – one in Charlevoix, Quebec, in 1663, three around New Madrid on the Missouri-Kentucky border between 1811 and 1812, and

The chlorine disinfectant known as bleach, which is used in hospitals, is as ineffective as water at killing off a superbug, a UK study has said. Bleach is applied for cleaning medics’ scrubs and surfaces but it does not work against the spores of Clostridioides difficile (C. diff), a bacteria which infects millions of people

Just when he thought he was in, they pulled him back out. Emmett Shear had an eventful weekend, appointed interim CEO at ChatGPT maker OpenAI after the sudden and dramatic ousting of Sam Altman last Friday. It was his first day job since leaving streaming site Twitch in March, a company he ran for over

In a shock sequence of corporate drama befitting of Succession, Sam Altman – the public face of ChatGPT maker OpenAI – was suddenly forced out. Not being “consistently candid in his communications” was the charge laid at his feet by the board. But within days, the 38-year-old was tipped for a return, those who toppled

Researchers have found that a species of bat uses its penis in a unique way during reproduction, avoiding penetration completely. Researchers from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland studied the serotine bat, which has a penis about seven times longer than its partner’s vagina. The animal also has a heart-shaped head that is seven times

Sam Altman, the deposed chief of tech firm OpenAI, is reportedly in talks to return less than three days after the board sacked him. Altman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, was dismissed on Friday. OpenAI said the move followed a “deliberative review process by the board”, which concluded Mr Altman “was

The chief executive of the company responsible for ChatGPT, who is widely considered the face of generative AI, has been pushed out of the firm he had helped propel to the forefront of the tech world. But for those concerned with AI safety, the focus is not as much on what Sam Altman does next

The co-founder and president of OpenAI has walked away from the company after its chief executive was forced out. Greg Brockman told colleagues “I quit” the firm, behind ChatGPT, in light of the departure of Sam Altman. Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, he said: “I’m super proud of what we’ve all built together

The chief executive of OpenAI – the firm behind viral chatbot ChatGPT – has been ousted after the board said it no longer has confidence in him. Sam Altman is to depart and will be replaced in the interim by Mira Murati, who is currently chief technology officer for the artificial intelligence company. In a

The Leonid meteor shower will light up skies above the UK this weekend, offering stargazers a celestial display. The best time to see the shower will be between midnight and before dawn in the early hours of Saturday. It is one of the bigger annual meteor showers in the sky, and usually features quick, fast

New research could shed light on how complex behaviours like cooperation and conflict evolved in humans. It had been thought only humans were capable of forming strategic alliances with those outside their social groups – but scientists have discovered similar behaviour in bonobos. The endangered ape species has “remarkable levels of tolerance between members of

Magicians are less likely to experience mental health challenges than other creatives, according to a new study. Researchers at Aberystwyth University say there is growing evidence of a link between those challenges and creativity. But new research led by the university has been published in the journal BJPsych Open which shows magicians are “an exception”.

Cambridge Dictionary has declared “hallucinate” as the word of the year for 2023 – while giving the term an additional, new meaning relating to artificial intelligence technology. The traditional definition of “hallucinate” is when someone seems to sense something that does not exist, usually because of a health condition or drug-taking, but it now also